"Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labor is not in vain".
1 Corinthians 15:58
In order to appreciate the force of the challenge contained in the words of our text, we have to consider chapter 15 as a whole with particular reference to the passage which immediately precedes our concluding verse. St. Paul focus in chapter 15 is a correct appreciation of the Resurrection of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Early in the chapter at verse 17 the Apostle states, "If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins." Verse 19, "If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died".
Paul speaks of the Resurrected Jesus as the "first fruits" of God’s redeeming work and he goes on to speak of the great harvest still to come when all of Jesus’ people are raised as he has been. The entire chapter focuses on the new creation that God is engaged in with the Resurrection of Jesus standing as the beginning of this new creation which will be brought to fulfillment at the end time when all things will have been made subject to God. The new creation is God at work in his creation, renewing, liberating, redeeming, so that "the kingdom of this world will become the kingdom of our Lord and His Christ." The Resurrection of Jesus is the beginning of this process as God seeks to transform persons and the entire created order to his likeness. An important aspect of that transformation is contained in Paul’s exposition of the two different types of bodies that we shall receive, the present one "corruptible" and the future one "incorruptible".
Before he presents the challenge in verse 58 Paul brings his discourse on Resurrection and new creation to a close with an act of thanksgiving to God, who by grace, is giving us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. The apostle uses the present participle to point to God’s "current and ongoing action in bringing and giving to believers the victory". Paul affirms the process that is under way with Christ’s death and Resurrection that will culminate in the redemption of all creation. Believers in Christ, as part of the new creation are already enjoying the benefits of God’s redemptive and creative activity. Above all else, Paul gives thanks to God for incorporating the believers into God’s victorious redemptive work.
Because of what God has already done in Jesus and what God will do as he brings his new creation into fulfillment, because this good and gracious God has made provision for believers to be incorporated into his plan, believers have certain responsibilities. The heart of the Apostle’s challenge is to be steadfast. He then gives 3 participles that describe how and what they are to do in order to be steadfast.
First, they are to be immovable. This word refers to the ability of believers to stand against whatever winds or experiences they encounter in life. They are to stand against these adverse forces in life because of their confidence that God will bring to completion what God has begun in them through Jesus Christ their Lord – that is the disposition that enables them to be steadfast.
Secondly, they stay steadfast by ‘always excelling in the work of the Lord’. And they can excel in the work of the Lord because they know, the third participle, "that their labour is not in vain in the Lord".
N.T. Wright, "What we can and must do in the present, if we are obedient to the gospel, if we are following Jesus, and if we are indwelt; energized and directed by the spirit, is to build for the kingdom". What you do in the Lord is not in vain. You are accomplishing something which will become, in due course, part of God’s new world. "Every act of love, gratitude and kindness; every work of art or music inspired by the love of God and delight in the beauty of his creation; every minute spent teaching a severely handicapped child to read or to walk; every act of care and nurture, of comfort and support, for one’s fellow human beings, and for that matter, one’s fellow non – human creatures; and of course every prayer, all spirit – led teaching, every deed which spreads the gospel, builds up the church, embraces and embodies holiness rather than corruption, and makes the name of Jesus honoured in the world – all of this will find its way, through the resurrecting power of God, into the new creation which God will one day make. That is the logic of the mission of God. God’s recreation of his wonderful world, which has begun with the resurrection of Jesus and continues mysteriously as God’s people live in the risen Christ and in the power of his Spirit, means that what we do in Christ and by the Spirit in the present is not wasted. It will last all the way into God’s new world. In fact, it will be enhanced there". "Surprised by Hope". J. Pail Sampley
In 1 Corinthians 15, "We know the grand design of what God is doing in the overall silence of things because the story moves from Christ’s death and resurrection toward the ultimate fulfillment of all of God’s promises, toward the redemption of God’s creatures and cosmos . We can be part of that story by God’s grace and if our lives are conduits for love. One’s labors in the Lord endure
just as surely as does one love; so properly to labour in God’s work is at the same time to walk in love. Not that we should think of ourselves as bringing God’s kingdom. It is God’s reign and God is bringing it in". However, the good news of the gospel is that God has ordered his world in such a way that he enlists us to serve as his stewards in his ongoing work in the world. At issue for each of us is whether and how fully we live our lives as a channel through which God’s love and mercy can flow to the world and to all of God’s creatures.
God bestows upon us the honour and privilege of working together with him as He brings into fulfillment his new creation. As God continues his transforming work, He invites us to be agents of transformation in our daily life situations. I firmly believe that the Church is being called to be a credible agent of transformation in contemporary society. A church convinced of its security in God’s grace can be liberated
from the social pressures to conform to the culture and can take a public stand where there are matters of justice and human well being at stakes. Such a church can represent the gospel by its public declarations about social issues and by the "hands-on" involvement with the problems that bedevil our communities. Then the Church would be doing the ‘work’ that it is called to do.
At the heart of the biblical revelation from Genesis to Revelation is the intention of God to set the whole world right – a plan we believe, gloriously fulfilled in Jesus Christ, supremely in his resurrection and now to be implemented in the world. Precisely because Jesus rose from the dead, God’s new world has already broken into the present, and Christian work for justice in the present expresses our participation in God’s work for his new creation. In the context of God’s setting the whole world right, the Church in our area should be more effectively engaged in addressing issues related to the lack of equality of opportunity for so many of our citizens. We encounter this social ill in several areas – employment, housing, health and education. One teenager described our Bahamian situation as follows, "In this country, if you don’t know somebody important, dog eat your lunch!" There are some fundamentalist churches who preach an unbiblical message namely that the world is currently in such a mess that there’s nothing that can be done about it until the Lord returns. The teaching of Paul and the rest of the New Testament is that we are mandated as believers to do something about it by being steadfast, immovable, excelling in the work of the Lord because we know that our labor in the Lord is not in vain – it counts for something in God’s overall plan for the final establishment of his kingdom. By the grace of God, the church should discern the areas in our community where things need to be set right and by the grace of God act as agents of God’s transforming love. This is a challenge which we must intentionally address.
In addition, the Church must address the important area of moral integrity. As believers, we acknowledge that there are moral choices, some right and others wrong. All decisions and actions that are consistent with God’s revealed wish and purpose are right and those that are in conflict with God’s revealed will are wrong. We are living in a pragmatic environment where the emphasis is on what works. If it works we go with the tide without reference to principle and integrity. Consequently our society is facing a crisis of morality that is evidenced in several important areas of life. In the area of sexuality, we are faced with a national situation in which promiscuity and loose living are too easily tolerated. Most members of our society no longer believe that fornication and adultery are sinful. The sweetheart syndrome in The Bahamas continues to thrive. Incest and child abuse are on the increase and our young people are growing up in a society that is to a large extent, sexually immoral. What makes the situation more intolerable is that a large number of persons actively engaged in these sexually immoral pursuits are members of our various churches.
In addition to the issues related to sexual immorality, we face in our nation a mindset that is determined to "beat the system" at every turn. Whatever the rule, whatever the convention, there are those in our society who are determined to find a way around the rule or convention. Consequently, corruption and dishonesty are so prevalent in so many walks of life. In this context, the church must work and witness for the restoration of moral integrity in every facet of our national life. However, that work and witness cannot be restricted to speaking the word of truth to the society – the speech must be accompanied by the lived example. Our credible witness in this important area of national life is of utmost importance for the health of the nation.
Another area of our national life that is crying out for help is home and family life. At the provincial level, the Anglican Church has emphasized the importance of this area of mission and ministry by the appointment of a new Provincial Family Life Commission. The Province has also mandated that each diocese appoints a Family Life committee to assist the church in developing strategies and structures to improve the quality of family life across the Province and the region. It is generally acknowledged that the strength of the family unit directly impacts the life of the nation. In our diocese, there is no doubt that family life is an area of grave concern. We need personnel and resources to enable us to make a positive contribution to this vital area of our national life.
In all of these areas the church is faced with the challenge to engage in renewed evangelism. Wright says, "If we are engaging in the work of new creation, in seeking to bring advance signs of God’s eventual new world into being in the present, then at the centre of the picture there stands the personal call of the gospel of Jesus to every child, woman and man".
In evangelism, the church shares the good news of God’s redeeming work in Christ and the hope of the final consummation when God’s kingdom will come on earth as it is in heaven. At the heart of this announcement is the fact "that God is indeed God, that Jesus is Lord, that the powers of evil, corruption and death itself have been defeated and that God’s new world has begun". However, as the church makes these pronouncements she has to ensure that her own internal life gives every sign that new creation is indeed happening, generating a new, type of community. And herein lies our problem. So often the proclamation is not accompanied by these signs. The life we live as a church, a community of faith, a company of believers must demonstrate that we believe that there is a new world in Jesus, that has already begun, and it works by healing and forgiveness and new start and fresh energy; and it comes about as people worship the God in whose image they are made; as they follow the Lord who bore their sins and rose from the dead, as they are indwelt by His Spirit and thereby given new life, a new way of life, a new zest for life. This is the good news that the church is called upon to live and to speak, to bring into reality, in each place and each generation.
The all important question is "what will we do in our generation?" The message of Paul in 1 Corinthians and in his other writings is quite clear – God wants us to be steadfast, immovable, holding to the truth as found in Jesus – faithful to him in every aspect of our living – throwing ourselves passionately and unreservedly into excelling and abounding in the work of the Lord because we understand the resurrection and what it tells us about the life and work in this world namely that our labor in the Lord is never in vain.
To the God who assures us of this hope and provides the wherewithal for our labour and work, we give thanks and praise now and forevermore.
